Igor Almeida Ferreira Baldoino

MA student, Otto-Friedrich-Universität Bamberg & Université Paris Diderot

On The Road with Lana del Rey: Reading Kerouac through a Female Perspective

In his most celebrated novel, Kerouac portrays a world that overflows testosterone and masculinity. On the Road seems to be a place no woman should be a part of but the almost unheard voices of strong female characters break the silence and speak through actions. The roles played by Marylou, Camille, Terry and Sal’s aunt, for instance, have great impact on the understanding of female role in the mid-XX Century, counterbalance the abundant “manliness” in the plot and makes it possible to establish a parallel between the 1950s and the present.
This research project offers a new perspective when reading Kerouac’s story: a female one. By reading On the Road through the angles of the four above mentioned women, readers are presented with the image of atypical women of that time. They are strong, independent, fearless and hard working, in fact, they almost resemble a man, they act virile. Each of them convey characteristics commonly attributed to manhood, breaking the pattern of objectified women or damsel in distress. This approach and change of perspective allows us to create a link from the circumstances of the time of its publication to the present days. Moreover, a further insight is proposed: a comparison and contrast between Kerouac’s characters and the persona and women present in Lana del Rey’s music. Heavily influenced by literature, del Rey works with themes that are very similar to those in On the Road, specifically in her song Ride, a possible rendition of his book.

Martina Bednáriková

MA student, Comenius University in Bratislava

Highway of Tears: Murdered and Missing Aboriginal Women and Canadian Body Politics

Adéla Branná

PhD student, Masaryk University in Brno

Soldier, Beauty and the Bird: Fragmentation of Gender Identity in the Popular Franchise The Hunger Games

This paper attempts to focus on the complexity of gender in the context of the twenty-first century. It argues that social influences deform the self and fragment it into various pieces. It uses the female heroine Katniss Everdeen from the popular American franchise The Hunger Games to examine gender androgyny and flexibility of the self to change in different social circumstances. The typical gender roles and features are blurred into an androgynous figure that does not possess a fixed self, but it serves as a reflection of the outside world. Katniss´s gender identity possesses both masculine and feminine characteristics as she changes back and forth from a killer into a beauty and finally reaches complete depersonalization of the self, when she is turned into a mere symbol of rebellion. As Suzanne Collins puts Katniss´s real gender identity in question, she reveals that what defines the contemporary young American generation are the outside social forces of commerce, fashion and media.

Natasa Damljanovic

PhD student, University of Belgrade

Esther’s Inner Colonization through the Prism/Prison of the Bildungsroman

Early and mid-20^th century is a period in literature which deals with the phenomenon called a “new woman”. A quest for an appropriate job, life is long, difficult and full of social obstacles. The goal of this paper is to analyze Sylvia Plath’s novel, The Bell Jar - the psychological growth/maturation of the novel’s heroine – Esther Greenwood. The theory of the Bildungsroman can help us to map the different events, especially in her childhood and early adolescence, which caused traumas that have twisted/shaped her life. It also helps us to reveal that Esther is just another girl who is in “conflict” with the world she lives in, to show her sufferance and nonconformity to the feminine ideals set by male expectations that dominated in post-war America.

The rebellious nature she possesses cannot possibly be associated with the madness. “She has had to go through the passage of life in the year when the Rosenbergs were electrocuted - that is, her life constituted an American life story only there and then, but, on other levels of interpretation it is generally the story of Wo/Man. This is not a case history of “madness” anchored in neurosis but a general paradigm of human fate – a morality” (Zselyi 2014). For this hypothesis we have used the methodologies of theoretical and cultural analysis of the main character/s.

Ľuboš Dudík

PhD student, Comenius University in Bratislava

Neologisms and Gender

The aim of this paper is to study those neologisms which reflect and denote gender roles, gender-based discrimination, male and female sexuality and other gender-related phenomena in contemporary American vocabulary. The lexemes under analysis were selected mainly from Merriam-Webster’s Open Dictionary. Macmillan’s Open Dictionary and the quarterly updates Oxford Dictionaries Online are used as secondary sources. The entries were selected based on whether they are labeled as Americanisms, or not pertaining to any regional variety of English, i.e. possibly also used in North America. The entries were selected from the year 2014 till the present. Examples of such neologisms include gender gap, girl crush or bro hug. These neologisms may reflect a myriad of topics such as change in gender roles, emancipation or discrimination. The paper discusses what we can learn about gender issues by observing the contemporary American lexicon. Key word formation processes of found lexemes are identified, comparing these findings to those of Böhmerová (2014) and Szymanek (2009) and discussing identifiable word formation tendencies in this area.

The scope of gender-related vocabulary is then compared with vocabulary reflecting minority issues, such as race and ethnicity in order to discuss the presence and importance of gender-related neologisms in the American lexicon.

Rinalda Sorana Fărăian

PhD student, Babeş-Bolyai University in Cluj

My paper will try to focus on gender - connected to race and ethnicity - in how mulattas are portrayed in writing (exclusively by female authors.) I will talk about the creole culture and the challenges of being of mixed race in a postbellum South in The United States. The authors in question are Kate Chopin and Grace King, a parallel between their writings being drawn to sustain my argument and the image of the “tragic mulatta.”

Eszter Hidasi

PhD student, Eötvös Loránd University in Budapest

Vulnerability and Resistance in Calamity Jane’s Figure of Pete Dexter’s Deadwood

My presentation is about Pete Dexter’s Deadwood (1989), on how he portrays the vulnerability of a woman of the Wild West, who wore men’s clothes most of the time: Calamity Jane. I shall consult Judith Butler’s concept of vulnerability here, on which she elaborated on in her article “On Vulnerability and Resistance” (2014). The article brings up further topics, like resistance, gender performativity and agency. If we imagine Jane in not only men’s clothes but with manly traits we can understand the difficulty she faces when she is forced to live off her body. Vulnerability shows itself in her hurt body, her unrequited love towards Wild Bill Hickok and her motherly love towards a boy who has lost his tongue and whom she nurses: despite her manly looks she is very feminine in showing her feelings. Resistance manifests itself in the way she dresses: she leaves her shirt unbuttoned but at the same time she wears an ammunition belt and a pistol over her lower stomach for protection: she knows how to seduce men and how to protect herself from them at the same time. Her gender performativity would mean that she is on the one hand determined as a woman biologically, thus she is vulnerable, on the other hand she is determined by her looks and her clothes as a man, and this ambivalence gives her the opportunity to differ from the prostitutes who also live off their bodies, that is, she decides with whom she wishes to sleep with.

Sanja Ignjatović

MA graduate, University of Niš

Alice Munro’s Autodiegetic Fiction – Female Narratives

The paper examines the various layers of female narratives in the selected stories from Alice Munro’s short-story collections Something I’ve Been Meaning to Tell You and Dear Life. By analyzing Munro’s narrative technique in the autodiegetic narratives Material, The Eye and Dear Life, the paper aims at revealing the personal narratives of authentic female voices intricately woven into the trivial and mundane story worlds, the voices otherwise denied public space. The design of Munro’s autodiegetic narratives produces the effect of autobiographical fiction, but it is the seemingly commonplace character-narrators whose authentic discourses ultimately blur the line between fiction and fact. In Material, Munro goes beyond her common themes and confides a personal narrative of a woman whose creative efforts only result in frustration and envy upon examining the social and private context in which her husband gained recognition in the literary circles. On the other hand, in the stories from the collection Dear Life, Alice Munro’s autobiographical stories give an outline of yet another female narrative – the narrative of her mother. Moreover, Munro purposefully undermines the autobiographical narrative unity by allowing for the narrative of her mother, among other, to flow into her own life-narrative and provide a new space for examination. Munro’s female narrators go beyond telling only their own stories. In fact, they thrive on implicating the reader into their openly jealous rants or supposed nostalgic contemplations.

Marián Kabát

PhD student, Comenius University in Bratislava

Genderlect on the Internet

The term “genderlect” was coined by Deborah Tannen (2001) to describe the differences between how men and women express themselves. Several studies were conducted to determine these differences, but are the findings valid for netspeak as well? We conducted our own research on this topic to determine whether “genderlect” is present in the unlimited and often anonymous space of the World Wide Web as well. The research was based on an online survey where bloggers from the Americas were asked to answer questions about their blog, age, sex, sexuality, personal information and form of expression. After that we randomly selected an equal amount of male and female blogs and examined the used language according to the criteria presented by Tannen (1995). The results were also compared between countries from the Americas. The results suggest that the meaning of the term “genderlect” should be more specific for conversations taking place on the internet. Interesting is also the fact that the country of the blogger's origin plays a part in his/her communication.

Martin Kolenič

MA student, Comenius University in Bratislava

The Phenomenom of Gender Neutrality in the Language of the US Congress

One of the aims of this paper is to examine the relationship between the importance of a concept in society and the amount of time people spend discussing it. Gender neutrality seems to be a linguistic and cultural phenomenon with an ever-strengthening presence in both common and official parlance. Lately, it has been preferable to avoid gender-marked terms in order to stay neutral. A prime example of such behaviour is any political institution with an Anglophone cultural context, say, the Congress of the United States of America.

However, does this somewhat recent linguistic development follow a historical tendency or is it something that came into the language impulsively and unexpectedly? The thesis of this paper is that with the rise of female rights movement, there may have been an ongoing effort to neutralise language in order to make it more egalitarian, so to speak. Therefore, it is deemed necessary to examine the historical development of the gender neutralisation in English, especially in the speeches of the American politicians who represent the nation on the highest level and thus can be – at least partly – considered as linguistic trend-setters.

In order to explore the presence of the phenomenon in the language of members of the Congress, a computer-aided frequency analysis shall be carried out. The transcripts of the speeches of various members of the Congress from the end of World War II on, both male and female, will be analysed for the presence of gender-marked pronouns and nouns, closely mapping the tendencies in the language. At the same time, a historical context of the timeframe will be provided, with special attention to be paid to the years of revolutionary developments in the field of gender equality and female rights issues.

Sanja Matković

PhD student, University of Osijek

Domestic Violence in Street Scene and Crimes of the Heart

Domestic violence and the attitude towards it have always reflected the role of women in the society, which is excellently presented in two American plays: Street Scene (1929) by Elmer Rice and Crimes of the Heart (1979) by Beth Henley. In Street Scene, a drama from the 1920s, Mrs Maurrant, the submissive wife of a foul-tempered husband, does not feel loved, so she finds a lover. Her husband learns about the affair and kills both Mrs Maurrant and her lover. Crimes of the Heart, set in the 1970s, is a black comedy about Babe, a young woman who feels lonely in her marriage to an abusive lawyer Zackery. However, her and Mrs Maurrant’s destinies are completely opposite. Not only does Babe cheat on Zackery, but she also decides to kill him after he attacks her lover. She is unhappy because she missed his heart and only wounded him in the stomach. Living in a different time period, Babe is able to react differently than the submissive Mrs Maurrant.

Tatiana Prorokova

PhD student, Philipps-University of Marburg

Female Oppression, Patriarchy, and America in the 1950s

How long have women been able to express their opinions freely? How long have women been able to choose how to build their lives, whether to opt for a married life and motherhood or education and career or to combine both? This paper claims that full gender equality is a rather recent phenomenon in American society. The paper traces the problem of female oppression back to the nineteenth century, primarily examining a pending issue of gender inequality that continued existing in the United States in the mid-twentieth century. To illustrate how the problem was reflected in American literature and, thus, culture, the paper provides an examination of a novel by one of the most crucially important and criminally understudied U.S. novelists, Evelyn Piper, Bunny Lake Is Missing that narrates a story of a working single mother whose child is kidnapped. The woman, whose status reveals her deflection from the norms of patriarchal society, is, therefore, left on her own to find her missing child and fight against injustice in a men-ruled world.

Julia Rensing

MA student, University Freiburg

Dead or Alive? American Gentlemen in Advertisements

The ‘masculinity crisis’ and the continuing renegotiations of gender positions seem to create a longing in some American men for an ancient and traditional male role model: the gentleman. At least this is what some advertisements suggests. The originally English construct is a popular feature in media all around the globe. Also in America a particular desire for specific codes of behavior, for the gentleman’s good manners, his honesty and gallantry, is apparent. A reason for this can be found in the changes in American society. Has feminism's challenge of traditional gender roles, and the ensuing uncertainty of masculinity, gone too far? This paper claims that, due to women’s struggles, by the end of this century the gentleman will be considered dead.

In order to analyze this process the gentleman’s formula is examined, as well as conceptions of American masculinity and the role of feminism today. My case study of three advertising spots featuring the ‘gentleman’ then shows that portrayals of the traditional concept oscillate between a celebration of the modern gentleman, a nostalgic remembrance of the traditional male idol and a display that focuses mainly on his specific codes of behavior. This suggests that men in the 21^st-century ‘masculinity crisis’ still admire the gentleman’s function as an idol. However, in a society striving for gender equality, this symbol of patriarchy cannot prevail. Thus, the term ‘gentleman’ must die in order to enable the rise of the ‘gentle person’.

Ria Struháriková

BA student, Comenius University in Bratislava

Gender as an Institutionalized Social Construct

This paper aims to show how the concept of gender is not merely a question of individual prejudice, but rather a part of well-structured system of discrimination rooted in the educational system. The goal of this article is to demonstrate how the underlying concepts of gender are being introduced already at an early age and are further reinforced by the educational system in the United States. Although schools should represent the institutions of equality for all and many affirmative programs have been developed over the past decades, schools’ policies, curricula and staff representation covertly underlie the differences across genders, and thus reproduce gender inequality. Schooling underscores various characteristics of each gender individually, and as a consequence creates the common ground for different expectations from each gender respectively. The system presupposes one gender with certain qualities while depriving the other of them. These expectations are often unequal and mutually exclusive, hence dividing the society into more and less privileged genders. Everyday school procedures normalize and emphasize these different expectations. Along these lines gender-identified roles in a society are being implied by a national system of education, as a result of which the process of forming equality among various genders is being constantly hindered despite many laws, programs and years of creating equality for all.

Eva Šoltésová

MA graduate, Masaryk University in Brno

Interweaving of Public and Private Spheres in Relation to Homosexuality in Québécois Society and Theatre

This paper considers the interconnectedness of the question of nationalism and that of sexual identity in Québécois society and cultural production, namely theatre. Nationalism in Quebec can be described as schizophrenic due to the conflict arising between its tradition of political liberalism and its strong conservative tendencies originating in the decades-long dominance of the Catholic Church. Since the Quiet Revolution homosexuality and transvestism have served in Quebec as a trope of the colonized character of its national identity. This type of metonymy suggests a complex play between the sphere of politics and the personal sphere of each individual, between the public and the private.

I analyze two plays from the 1980’s, period of apparent disappointment with and decline in nationalist endeavor after the unsuccessful referendum of 1980, Being at home with Claude by René-Daniel Dubois and Le Polygraphe by Robert Lepage. Both plays depict the struggle of homosexual characters against the police and the judiciary, which takes the form of an erotic play between the powerful state apparatus on the one hand and the loathed criminal on the other.  The basis for this erotic play is provided by the phenomenon of confession as theorized by Michel Foucault. Both plays pivot around the act of confession, one of which is even effectuated by means of a lie detector. My thesis is that this act of confession, because of its inherently symbolic nature, deprives the characters of the specificity of their marginal position, from which they could claim their national and sexual identity.

Matthias Voigt

PhD student, University of Frankfurt a. M.

Cultural Warriors - Native Masculinities in the Aftermath of the Red Power Movement

During the 1960s and 1970s, Native men and women waged their most campaign of resistance and introspection in Indian Country in the 20^th century, fundamentally restructuring Indian-white relations and at the same time initiating a cultural renaissance lasting to the present day. The political struggle brought about a re-masculinizing within Native men: the most salient form of which were the “protest warriors” at Wounded Knee who declared an independent nation separate from the U.S. During and in the wake of the political struggles, Native men in the cultural nationalist movement fundamentally re-invented themselves and society through bodily practices, place-making, storytelling and commemoration, and the arts. Together, these various elements of the cultural nationalist movement helped to re-invent to decolonize and heal self and society, allowing Native men to retake their place within families, tribes, and their tribal nations.

This presentation examines the various decolonizing strategies Native men employed to reconnect to their past and recapture part of their Native identity and remake their tribal nations. Many revitalization strategies relied on memory studies and adjustment to contemporary realities. An examination into the various cultural elements involved into the decolonization struggle offers a better understanding into contemporary Native realities.

Gergely Voros

BA student, Comenius University in Bratislava

Power, Gender and Ideology in One Flew over the Cuckoo's Nest

At first sight the world presented in the novel One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest seems to be dominated by women - in particular Nurse Ratched. Yet the story is not only told through the voice of patriarchy, but it attempts (and succeeds) in legitimising those male created categories that define women in relation to men. To this end the narrative entangles the image of the illegitimately powerful woman with the oppressive nature of disciplinary power. Hence, as soon as the rationality that is imposed upon the inmates starts to seem morally reprehensible, the women who do not stay in their prescribed roles, are held responsible for the inadequacies of the system. As a result women again, as in many narratives before, are held to be the root of all evil in the world. Consequently, the resistance of the inmates gains a metaphysical level: to remove her means more than simply to break free from the constraints of oppressive power, it is an attempt to reinstate the order of idealised past, as it were, to reinstate Phallus where Logos was.

Elissa Wittke

MA student, Albert-Ludwigs-University Freiburg

Coloring True Womanhood. Frances E. W. Harper and Nineteenth-Century Black Feminist Intersectionality

In both her literary and political writings, Frances E. W. Harper exhibits a surprisingly modern and intersectional approach to racism and gender inequality, thereby preceding Black feminist critique of the exclusiveness of second wave feminism by about a century. This paper
examines how Harper uncovers and condemns the double oppression African-American women suffer from: gender inequality and racism. It is necessary to (re-)evaluate how Harper both embraces and transforms nineteenth-century female stereotypes, namely those postulated by the "Cult of True Womanhood." Demonstrating an intricate knowledge of the sociopolitical context of Reconstruction, she demands that the intersecting forms of oppression, dominating Black female life, be recognized. Claiming women's moral superiority to men, Harper re-envisions the true woman as a self-reliant, critically thinking female who goes public for the benefit of all humankind, rather than pursuing individual domestic happiness. She moreover claims the ideal of traditionally White true womanhood as a role model for women of color, too. Finally, she emphatically demands that women from all races and nations join moral forces to publicly fight for a better, more just society – anticipating the
most central demand of third wave feminism.

Nausica Zaballos-Dey

Postdoc , Paris IV Sorbonne

“Thank my vagina” said First Woman to First Man: Female Empowerment in Traditional Navajo Myths

“Thank my vagina”, said First Woman to First Man. And upon those unexpected words, men and women decided to live separately on the opposite banks of a river. The separation of the sexes and its following episodes (the birth of the monsters, the apparition of Changing Woman and the Twins’ heroic feats) not only acknowledge the matriarchal dimension of Navajo society in mythological terms, they also advocate for a balanced gender representation of the spiritual realm and the political powers on Earth. This essay will show to what extent the ritual construction of Navajo bodies and the universe reflect this need and craving for female empowering role-models. It will also discuss the many ways contemporary Navajo women, often victims of domestic abuse and professional discrimination, relate to traditional myths to foster new models of female empowerment.